He Belonged With Me
by the-black-drop
Summary: Olivia rids her apartment of any trace of AltLiv. Based on the promo for 3x09, Marionette


**This is all based on the promos for the next episode, Marionette. There aren't any spoilers in it apart from what's in the promos. This is not how I think the scene will actually play out, it's just my little spin on things – written kind of as a spinoff to one of my other fics, I Lied to You (so if there are similarities between them, that's why, but you don't have to read one to understand the other). **

**Hope you enjoy!**

**God bless : )**

There's a glass on whiskey in my hand. Not unusual. But tonight I'm half way through the bottle, and it isn't even 9:30 yet. I'm sitting on the kitchen floor, my back against the wall. Things are out of control. I can feel it. But they have been for a long time now. For two whole months, I was Over There – brainwashed, tortured, hunted. I had no idea who I was, who to trust or how to get home. I was a prisoner of war in the greatest battle of all time. I'd gone over there to fight voluntarily without hesitation. To bring Peter back. To save the boy who was the catalyst for the war. Along the way we kissed. And in the end he left me there.

Over There, he was always in my head. Helping me, guiding me – he saved my life. If it weren't for him I never would have made it back. The Peter projected in my head was a tourniquet – the last thread attaching me to the other side. But I came back only to find that the real Peter, the one who had always been a loyal friend and maybe something more, had not even noticed I was gone.

In the café earlier today he told me he slept with her. He said he felt terrible. He looked terrible. I told him it was fine. It's not big deal - he thought she was me. "We're good," I said. I told him I was OK. He didn't look convinced, but he knew better than to question me.

I held it together all day – through the case, through everything. But I'm home now. I'm alone, and that's when I fall to pieces. This is my haven, the only place I can let myself cry, and she's marked herself all over it. My head is filled with bitter caterwauls I refuse to voice. I hate him. I hate her. All I can see in my head is them together, the images making me nauseous. My graphic imagination slices at me like the blades of razors, and no amount of alcohol has been able to dull its biting edge so far.

I put down my glass of whiskey and walk through my apartment. The reminders of her are everywhere. She crawled her way into my life, and now the little differences between us are brutally etched, irreversibly it seems, into my home. There's extra make-up in the bathroom. More colourful clothes in the closet. U2 CDs in the living room. Avocados in the fridge. All these little fragments of her that were never me. But they didn't add up enough for him to see them, did they?

What's worse to see than the evidence of her? The evidence of _them_. The photo-booth pictures on her dressing table. The concert tickets. The breakfast-in-bed tray in the kitchen. The note she wrote him in bed the other day that still lay on her bedside table, her writing so identical to mine:

_P,_

_Didn't want to wake you. I have to duck out – Broyles needs to see me about something. Be back soon._

_O_

And then there's the almost empty box of condoms in the drawer. And the subtle way that I can smell him on my pillow.

I feel sick. She's everywhere. Like a ghost. I feel like I can't get rid of her, like she's in my skin. I clench my eyes shut, but a couple of tears still manage to leak out the edges. _Don't cry_, I think to myself. _Don't fucking cry. He isn't worth it. After everything you went through Over There, this can't be the thing that breaks you._

So I do what I always do – turn my despair into anger. I tear through my apartment, ridding it of every trace of her, and more painfully, every trace of him. I go through the kitchen, bathroom and living room soon enough, tossing all of her things into a big black garbage bag. It's the bedroom that I'm least willing to explore, but inevitably I get there.

I start with the sheets. I tear them viciously off my bed. The smell of him on them is just as painful as the idea of her. The closet is next. I'm not used to seeing so many colours. I tear them out from between the blacks and greys, one by one. I don't care than I'm ripping the shirts as I do so – I just want them gone. But my heart breaks when I see his clothes in there, too. All I want to do is tear them up as well, but I don't. I'm not even sure why, but I tearfully take them off the hangers and fold them up, smoothing over the material in my hands. I end up putting a pile of them on the couch before putting all over her clothes in black plastic bags again.

Realising that there's nothing more to get rid of (or so I think), I pick the sheets up off my bedroom floor and drag them over to the washing machine in the laundry. I put them inside and turn the machine on, hearing it rumble as it cleans the sheets. That's when I really lose it. For some reason, that's the point when I really realise that no matter what I do, I'll never lose her – not really. She slept with him. In my bed. She took something that was mine, which I can't ever get back. Even if I ever manage to forgive him for this and we get together, my firsts won't be his firsts. He'll always be damned to compare the two of us, even if he doesn't mean to. She'll never be out of his head.

He was mine. He belonged with me. All I wanted the entire time I was trapped in the other universe was to go home, but it's utterly unreachable now. Peter was my home.

Sobs start to wrack my body as I slide down the wall beside the washing machine. We'll never fix this. He'll never be the same, and neither will I. He's too far gone, now. If he fell for her with all the little differences, then he never really fell for me. He never really knew me at all.

When I am finally able to bite back my tears, I go back into the kitchen to my glass of whiskey, finishing it off. My phone buzzes on the table. Again. Peter's been calling or texting non-stop since our discussion in the café. I look at the latest message:

_Livia, I know you're ignoring me. I deserve it. Please call me. I just want to know if you're alright. _

_Peter._

I spend what feels like hours weighing up the possibility of talking to him tonight. I've stopped crying by now. I don't feel pain or anger anymore. I just feel empty. So I think; what the hell. It won't make anything better anyway, and it certainly can't make things any worse.

I type up a message for Peter. I hesitate, closing my eyes in hurt and immediate regret as I hit "Send":

_Can you come over? We need to talk._

His urgent reply:

_I'm on my way._

I clear away my glass, deciding that if I have any more alcohol I'll start to lose even more control. I go to the bathroom mirror and wash my face, waiting for the red in my eyes to dull. Before I even expect it, there's a knock at the door, and I feel already like my last shred of relief has been thrown out the window. It's not until I reach for the door knob that I realise my hands are shaking.

I open the door. He stares at me like he knows I've been crying. I give him a weak, wistfully pained smile. This was a smile I'd always reserved for just him, only when we were having those particularly deep conversations after a long case - but now I'm wondering if she ever smiled at him in the same way.

"I lied to you," I say.

"About what?" he asks softly, not sure if he should come in.

My eyes start to water and I look down. "I'm not OK." All day I've been telling him I was fine. For once I tell him the truth. I'm not OK at all. I don't want to talk to him. I don't want to be anywhere near him. I hate him beyond measure but what multiplies all of that pain by a million is that part of my scarred heart still loves him. But I could never tell him that.

He just nods, regret in his eyes, and says "I know." He steps inside, not waiting for my permission. I wrap my arms around myself protectively as he looks over the garbage bags on the living room floor, noticing that down the corridor by mattress is bare. I go to the couch, picking up his pile of clothes and handing them to him. I can't even look him in the eyes. "These are yours," I say, biting back tears. "I thought you'd want them back."

He nods in gratitude and takes them into his hands, tenderly brushing mine as he does so. He looks over the bags on the floor again. "Do you want me to get rid of these for you?"

I nod silently.

He goes and looks through them briefly, seeing her clothes, her make-up, everything she brought here that wasn't there before. "What do you want me to do with all this? Give it away? Throw it out? Burn it?"

"I don't care. Just take it away from here."

He nods and gathers everything up to take it to his car. He hesitates at the door. There's a look between us now – like both of us want to say something but neither of us have the courage to.

"Livia, I'm so sorry. I know I can't take it back or make up for it, but if there's anything I can do -"

"I know."

He nods solemnly and reluctantly leaves; bags in hand. I rush to the door and close it behind him, leaning against its cold wooden surface and sliding to the floor. Before I know it I'm sobbing again. This would hurt a million times less if I didn't care for him. Because the opposite of love isn't hate – it's indifference. I hate him right now more than I've ever hated anything. But the hate means I still care.

Yet the tiny part of me that purely loves him still tries to convince the rest of me that what he did doesn't matter – that it didn't mean anything. I gulp back more angry tears. It wasn't his fault. He had no idea. I'm really the one he fell for, not her. It was just a mistake. She means nothing to him.

God I wish I could believe that.

**Thanks for reading.**

**Please review! I really appreciate hearing what you guys think.**


End file.
